In recent years, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and other flat panel display devices, have become increasingly popular as mechanisms for displaying information to operators of vehicles, such as aircraft. One of the reasons for this is that LCDs are capable of providing very bright and clear images that are easily seen by the user, even in high ambient light situations, such as daytime flight.
One of the most important features in an avionic system is the integration of Night Vision Imaging Systems (NVIS) which gives the user the ability to observe the environment outside the aircraft in very low ambient light situations, such as nighttime flight, typically using a NVIS headset or goggles. The NVIS systems operate by being particularly sensitive to certain frequencies of light, such as infrared and/or near-infrared. Thus, any objects emitting such frequencies will appear to be relatively bright to the user.
In order to prevent infrared light emitted by the LCDs from seeming overly bright to a user employing an NVIS headset or goggles, the LCDs, or the LCD light sources, are often provided with optical filters that filter or block the particular frequencies of light to which the NVIS systems are sensitive. However, often the construction of the flat panel display devices does not provide for a structure that will maximize filtering performance, particularly in flat panel display systems that can operate in both a “daytime mode” and a “nighttime mode.”
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method for constructing a backlight for a flat panel display system that maximizes the optical filtering performance thereof. Additionally, is it desirable to provide a backlight for a flat panel display system with improved optical filtering performance. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.